Last weekend was the annual winterfeast of our umbrella society. This time it was held in the prehistoric camp HAPS (Thanks Sabine!). Located in the outskirts of the foresty Veluwe region, this was a nice setting for some snap-shots of Deventer Burgerscap members.

Isis had haar nieuw geruite hosen af en kon met de vrieskou dus lekker twee paar hosen over elkaar trekken.Isis had finished her chequered stockings and so was able to wear two pair of them to withstand the freezing temperatures.

It is a shame that such detailed numbers as those for Hamburg are not around for Deventer. But we do have some figures that allow us to calculate the minimum amount of inhabitants in the last four decades of the 14th century. Each year every each household was obliged to pay a fee with which the guards of the town gates were to be paid. Because of the entries for this in the cities accounts we know the minimum amount of Deventer households for those years.Benders has taken these in his book 'Bestuurscultuur en Schriftcultuur' and multiplied them by 4.5 to reach a minimum amount of inhabitants. Between 1361 and 1391 he came to 3,000-3,500 and from 1391 to 1400 he saw some 3,500-4,000. Of course when the annual fee was relatively small in a certain year, then more households would be deemed to being able to pay. This would explain the two high numbers of almost 4,000 in 1372 and 4,500 in 1395.

If, per the Hamburg example, we use a multiplier of 4 instead of 4.5 like Benders did, there would have lived over 3,500 inhabitants in Deventer in 1372. Logically only people that had citizens rights would be paying the tax for their town gate guards. Assuming this, the minimum of 3,500 citizens of Deventer can be compared to the 4,800 of Hamburg of 1376. If the Hamburg case would be further mirrored on the inhabitants of Deventer we would get the following proportions.

Totaal aantal inwoners / Total number of inhabitants: 6,000

Aantal burgers / Number of citizens: 3,550Aantal niet-burgers / Number of non-citizens: 2,450

Aantal kooplieden / Number of merchants: 130Aantal ambachtslieden / Number of craftsmen: 750Aantal overige beroepsmatigen / Number of other professionals: 10

With some 170 merchants, Deventer would have been Hamburgs equal in commercial activities around 1370. Of course Deventer did not have the explicit beer brewing industry that Hamburg had. Instead it was more of a international port of transfer, with her weeklong annual markets, where people from Bruges to Leipzig flocked to, four to five times a year.

After an uprising had been crushed in Hamburg in 1375, all the master craftsmen and merchants had to swear an oath in 1376, promising never again to take up arms. Sadly, the list with their names was burned in 1842, but luckily their numbers per profession had been noted down the year before.

Clearly Hamburg was a large beerbrewing centre and exported its beer mainly to the Netherlands. The relatively large number of 178 merchants is also worth noticing and can be seen as a sign of Hamburgs importance as a Hansa city.Suppose that Hamburg had 1,200 heads of household with citizens rights; that is the list of 1,175 and some 25 others like schoolmasters, lawyers, apothecaries, doctors etc. And suppose on average each household contained 4 people. This would mean that there lived 4,800 people in a citizens household in Hamburg.According to a plaque in the Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte, Hamburg had about 8,000 inhabitants in 1375, of which 60 % with citizens rights and 40 % without. And 60 % of 8,000 is 4,800, so this supports my calculations. And this means that there were 3,200 non-citizens living in Hamburg; some 800 apprentices and day labourers, with their families.